The Various Types of Web Design and Figuring Out The Best Type for You

When you launch a business nowadays, it’s hard to find a business that does not have a website. It can be just a simple website that is maybe just one page or it can be a super fancy, amazingly designer website that allows for user to interact with. The bottom line is that most businesses need a website to ensure recognition and growth. We don’t use the Yellow Pages anymore. So how is someone going to find out about your company and give you a call when they need your services? It’s almost impossible to advertise your company for cheap nowadays. Billboards may cost millions and newspaper adverts can only go so far.

A website is a quick and easy way to get your business out there for a fraction of the cost. Sure, you would need to pay the web developers a considerable sum first, but trust us, it is extremely worth it. When you first enter the world of website creation, it might seem a little daunting because of all the new terms and the sheer amount of work that goes into creating a simple website. But if you hire the right people and maintain a good working relationship with great communication it will be a breeze!

So now let’s get down to business. First things first, if you are new to this world of advertising and web development let’s help you get acquainted with the three main types of web designs. Although that they have branched out and a lot of new and cool designs have come about, it seems like there are three main types that you can attribute web designs to.

#1 Fixed Design

This is the most common and probably the earliest type of web design there ever was. This was probably the founding father of the website world! But it is known to be a primitive design that is still quite favoured by the masses. This design has components that are packed within fixed widths or percentage widths. Everything has it’s own place and it’s all tightly packed. This just means that whoever is visiting the website will always see a fixed version of that website. This is great if there is a standard size all over the world. Sadly the masses use different types of laptops, desktops, phones and even tablets. All of these devices have different resolutions and this just means that once the website is seen from different devices, the website does not change.

It stays true to its name of being fixed. This poses a problem with different screen resolutions because it might be too small for some which means there will be some information that can’t be seen. Or imaging having a full desktop-sized website being viewed on an iPhone 5s. You will not be able to see anything on the phone. All you will end up seeing is just small pieces of text. Now that is not a very great user experience and if you keep it that way, most people will just give up and never come back to that website ever again. It also does the same to pictures on the website too. The quality becomes horrible because the sizing of the entire page becomes wonky.

This website design will look amazing if it you use the proper computer or tablet that it is made for. But if you don’t then the design does fall quite short on your expectations scale.

#2 Liquid Or Fluid Design

This is basically the opposite of the fixed design. This is the more current and up to date design that more millennials go for. When the browser is resized when you go from your desktop to your mobile browser, the website changes and moulds alongside you. This is easy for people who are on the go a lot and they prefer to read their blogs and websites while on the run. The content on the page will spread itself out to fill up the spaces if need be.

The columns that contain the content is built using percentages rather than fixed columns like the ones used in a fixed design. This just means that the columns will increase or decrease in size relative to one another.

This design is definitely better than the fixed design but it has some flaws. The biggest flaw is that sometimes on much larger monitors, the text can get out of hand if it tries to fill the entire page. It might just end up looking extremely awkward. Thus, there are certain benefits and disadvantages to this type of web design.

#3 Responsive Design

This is a combination of both earlier designs and it’s optimised to work on most devices. This is also obviously a more expensive design because the amount of programming and code that goes into making the design shape shift to fit everyone’s devices is not easy. This design makes everything easier to read and navigate. Thus avoiding the headache of trying to scroll left and right to read the entire page.

When you decide to design a responsive website, this saves you the extra time and energy needed to create multiple web designs to fit every type of device. A responsive design is also much more smarter than you think it is. If you’re watching a video on the site or if there is a gallery of pictures, it will lower the resolution of the picture or video that you are viewing to optimise web browsing. This ensures that all readers – including the ones with crappy internet, will always have a great time browsing the website as if it was personally made for them!

Picture Credits : willbecoded.ca

As mentioned earlier, websites are incredibly important for any business nowadays and we believe that you need to get one as soon as possible. If you need help getting started, head on over to the ThunderQuote platform where you can submit a request for a professional web developer / web development firm and get up to 5 quotes for free!

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.